Nevertheless, in his bid for supreme power in October 1799 Napoleon
faced a situation of frightening complexity. The only certainty was that
the Directory was discredited for economic reasons. It was the Army that
sustained the Directory, and a system of symbiotic corruption resulted.
Army officers and war commissioners demanded the right to loot and
requisition in order to line their pockets, while the Directory had to bow
to the demands of the Army, as the government in turn needed the spoils
of war to pay bankers, army contractors and other creditors and to raise
revenue. But inflation gnawed away at the Directors' position. In 1794
the gold franc was worth 75 paper francs, but by 1798 the rate had soared
to 8o,ooo paper for one gold franc.
The Directory had inherited an impossible financial situation. The
State was virtually bankrupt, credit was non-existent and the worthless
assignats had been withdrawn. Left with nothing but taxation to finance
the war, the Directors struggled manfully and even introduced worth
while administrative reforms and improved the tax system. But there was
no way to avoid inflation, and the pressing need for money explained the
collaboration of Army and government in exacting revenue from the
conquered territories. Meanwhile the government steadily added to its
tally of enemies. Having already alienated the Catholic Church by its
anticlericalism and the Jacobins by its conservatism, by its forced levy of
one hundred million francs on the rich the Directors also lost caste
among the privileged. Nor was there any hope of support from the urban
proletariat or the sans-culottes. Butter and cheese were already luxury
items, sugar was heavily rationed, and the price of basics was
astronomical: 250 grammes of coffee cost zro francs, a packet of candles
625 francs, two cubic metres of wood 7,300 francs. Many families were
reduced to hanging a lump of sugar from the ceiling, and this would be
dipped into a cup of coffee for a few seconds.
The corruption of the Directory was legendary and the hatred
entertained for the government proportional. On the opening night of the
play La Caverne, a melodrama featuring four thieves as principal
characters, a wag in the audience called out: 'Only four? Where's the
fifth?' The entire theatre dissolved into laughter, with the actors actually
applauding the audience. Many other contemporary stories testified to
the intense unpopularity of the Directors. A perfume vendor in the rue
de la Loi was said to have made a fortune out of selling a fan with five
lighted candles painted on one side, with the middle candle much taller
than the others. On the other side of the fan were the words: 'Get rid of
four of them. We must economize.' Another story, relating to the
swelling throng of Directory clients and hangers-on, concerned a Gascon,
marcin
(Marcin)
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